Unilever to close Maryland novelties plant

Unilever has announced that it will be closing its frozen novelties manufacturing plant in Hagerstown, Md.

“Continually achieving greater efficiencies across our supply chain network is essential to our business,” said Steve Rosemary, director of manufacturing at Unilever Ice Cream. “An extensive and careful analysis has shown that greater efficiencies can be achieved by shifting production to other company plants in the U.S. This decision was not easily made, and in no way reflects the dedication or performance of our colleagues at the Hagerstown facility.”

Production from Hagerstown – which manufactures Klondike, Popsicle and Good Humor novelties, as well as Ben & Jerry’s cones and Breyer’s Fruit Bars – will be transferred to other sites within the Unilever network in several phases. Plant production is expected to finish by the end of 2011, with the final plant closing expected to occur during that same time period.

The decision to close the plant will affect 460 salaried and hourly employees.

Did you enjoy this article? Click here to subscribe to Dairy Foods print Magazine. Click here to subscribe to our digial edition.

Events

In this free hour-long webinar, Allen Sayler from the Center for Food Safety & Regulatory Solutions will cover "Best Practices” in dairy food and beverage manufacturing. Topics to be discussed range from Identifying and understanding the most likely hazards to avoiding product recalls.

Flexible pouch packaging is the fastest-growing segment of U.S. consumer packaging. For 18 years the industry has been served by Packaging Strategies Global Pouch Forum — the largest conference on flexible packaging. To better meet industry needs, we are launching a second event — Global Pouch Forum West!

Products

An at once an all-inclusive guide to the meaning of hundreds of technical terms and ideas needed for ice cream manufacturing, as well as a practical introduction to the ingredients, freezing methods, flavoring, and packaging of ice cream, sherbet, sorbet, gelato, frozen yogurts, novelties and many other kinds of frozen desserts.